I. Am. Tired. (Thoughts on Sunday evening.)

     What a day. Our intention was to plow through the list of things we still need for the house. The list looked like this:

• Get online somewhere and check email/Facebook and post blog entries.
• Buy a toaster oven.
• Buy a rice cooker.
• Buy a blender.
• Buy a laundry rack.
• Buy a fan for the balcony.
• Get Steve’s glasses fixed. (He swatted at a mosquito and sent his glasses flying off his face, landing on the floor and ending up as a twisted, one-lensed version of their former  selves.)
• Hang the hammock.
• Arrange for Jaz’s curtains to be made.
• Arrange for some shelving to be built for our bedroom.
• Arrange for internet access at the house.

     Thanks to our trusty tuktuk driver/friend/personal assistant Chamnan, we got most things on the list accomplished. I don’t know what we would do without him. He can find whatever we’re looking for at the enormous Psar Leu Market. He can take us to the internet office to make arrangements, and he can help someone’s auntie measure the windows for curtains. He can string a hammock up anywhere. He carries our bags, loads our purchases onto the tuktuk, knows where to get glasses fixed, and he offers me a cigarette at just the right moment while we’re waiting for Steve to come back from a vegetable-buying excursion. I was pleased when, at the end of the day together, he accepted our offer of a beer (or three) but was sorry that he wouldn’t stay for dinner.

     We had several guests at the house today. Besides Chamnan, who relaxed on the balcony in the late afternoon, Jaz’s friend Boromey came and stayed for dinner (“My first time eating at the home of the foreigner.”) and Marina (from Seven Candles) came with her two children and a niece. Our friend Rethy, tour guide/driver/flamboyant but married man came over and began researching and helping himself to the contents of our refrigerator. (“When you invite me and my wife to dinner at your house? You tell me, and I don’t eat for two days before!”)

     While Marina and the kids were here, Fifi happily showed off his first missing tooth and busied himself using my new tape measure to measure everything in sight. Alice asked for gum and drew pictures. The kids asked, “What is this?” about everything scattered around the house. Marina invited us over for breakfast on Monday to show off her new breakfast menu for the guests at Seven Candles. Boromey wanted to know when we would like to go to Sihanoukeville, his hometown at the seaside, so he could go with us, and wondered if he could come over to our house whenever he has free time – which is every day until school starts again around the first of October. Almost everyone asked how much everything cost. By the time everyone cleared out around 9:00 pm, I was exhausted, and I can only imagine how exhausted all our guests were, having spent the day struggling to communicate in English.

     I learned three new words today in Khmer, and forgot them all within two minutes. Tomorrow, my Khmer lessons start for real, and it isn’t going to be pretty…

     

     The shopping for things we need around the house continues. When we go into shops and look at things like blenders and toaster ovens, we are asked within minutes, “You live here now?” and people want to strike up conversations. It’s a bit like being some sort of small-time celebrity, simply by virtue of being a foreigner. It’s odd, and sometimes fun, and often embarrassing. Yes, we live here now. No, we don’t work yet. Yes, we’d like to buy a toaster oven. And how are you? 

     Our day was so busy that I never even got around to doing the next load of laundry. On the bright side, Steve finally cooked dinner at home! He cranked up some Rolling Stones on the iPod, put on his apron, and made delicious risotto. Jaz and I were in heaven - going out every night gets old fast, and there's nothing like Steve's cooking to leave me feeling that all is right with the world. 

      I think Steve and I are even more of oddity because our of our nontraditional roles. I sat on the balcony and had a beer (or two) with Chamnan while Steve happily made dinner. Chamnan suggested to Jaz that she should call me “Daddy” and call Steve “Mum.” It is a source of great hilarity, as is true of so many things we say and do.

     It’s just one of the ways that my life has been turned on its head – at home, being laughed at by strangers for reasons unclear is something to be avoided. Here, it happens every day, over and over, and I just laugh back and shrug. And at home, I would have loved it if I could make all the decisions about everything (and I often tried to), but here, when I ask how much I owe Chamnan for his services or whether I should or shouldn’t do something, I am often told, “Up to you.”  But “up to me” gives me too much responsibility and stress! I want to pay a fair price, but how do I know what is fair? I don’t want to overpay by a ridiculous amount, both for obvious budgetary reasons and because I hate to look like a crazy foreigner flashing money all over town. Sometimes I ask Jaz for her opinion, but she is already Khmerified enough that she sometimes just looks mildly annoyed and repeats, “It’s up to you. Pay what you think you should.” But that doesn’t help much. Sometimes I just don't know.

     There’s so much I don’t know. I’m embracing my incompetence and hoping that being the newly arrived foreigner will get me off the hook for a good long time. I don’t know where to put the trash, how to give people directions to our house, why the fan in the kitchen makes that noise, or when to water the plants on the balcony. Luckily, I usually know who to ask.

     Tomorrow morning: breakfast with Marina at 7:30, Metfone company comes to install internet, and I have an appointment(!) at 10:30 at the school where Jaz works. I have been asked by the director to come and meet with him. I have no idea why, but I’ll show up and see what he wants. Steve already spent time with him on Friday, and I have nothing to offer, but what the heck – if the pleasure of my company is requested, who am I to turn it down? It’s not like I have anything better to do.

     And maybe tomorrow, enough time to post photos...